What Should My Business Do With Voice?

You can no longer ignore that voice is how customers will search and interact with your business in the digital space.

Welcome to 2017—where driverless cars are real. Artificial Intelligence is being brought to life. You’re connected to nearly every other person on the globe instantly. Now, you can talk to your phone, house, car and refrigerator without looking insane, because likely, it’ll talk back.

The last two years have seen a shift as Apple, Amazon and Google have released voice experiences. Google released Google Home, which extends its mobile Google Assistant to an in-home device. Apple continued to refine Siri. Amazon Echo hardware introduced Alexa. The Alexa ecosystem is being embedded in everything from kitchen appliances to cars.

Each of these platforms takes advantage of increases in speaker technology, internet connectivity, natural language processing and early artificial intelligence to facilitate a voice interaction. A great voice experience is understanding natural language. It answers questions, instead of searching for keywords or commands. It looks for the context of the question and provides a natural response with a valuable reply. By using voice, we are less likely to feed the addiction to our screens, but still perform connected tasks.

Ask yourself the following two questions to consider how your business can interact with potential and existing customers using voice.

#1. How should I think about my content and the future of voice SEO?

First, get an Amazon Echo or a Google Home. Start asking it questions that you think your customers would ask. Once you hear the replies, begin creating content that uses words associated with those answers. Write in short, natural language as if you were speaking the response. Start with who, what, how, where in your headline. Finally, ensure that your retail listings on Google, yelp, and other online platforms include good descriptions to support how someone might ask for your business.

We asked Google Home, “What does it cost to build a mobile app?” That’s one question we know a client might ask Crema. Google replied, “SavvyApps.com says that apps built by the largest app companies, the big boys, likely will cost between $500,000 and $1,000,000.”

Savvy Apps posted a blog, “How Much Does an App Cost: A Massive Review of Pricing and other Budget Considerations.” The post ranks well for SEO, but because my question was almost identical to the language in the title, Google found this post to be the likely answer to our question. It then found a natural, short response from the content in the article.

#2. Why should my business app offer a voice experience?

Thinking of building a mobile app? Customer adoption is becoming more and more difficult because the app stores are crowded, and downloads are dropping. Consider how your business can serve your customer through a voice experience.

Some examples of existing apps using voice include Domino’s and Uber. Ask Domino’s to order a pizza, tell it the size and toppings, and confirm. The transaction will use your Domino’s account and card on file to place the order. Ask Uber to bring a ride to your location and it will use your Uber account to send a driver your way.

Each of these experiences integrate into the company’s existing web applications. As you progress through a series of questions and answers, the services collect the details needed to facilitate the transaction and place an order back to their cloud app.

The internet connected our businesses to the world. The iPhone made our businesses mobile. Now, voice is making the interaction between the real world and the digital world seem a little more natural. How will your business talk about voice?